Saturday, July 30, 2016

50 years ago: WORLD CUP WILLIE

It's 50 years to the day since the 1966 World Cup and England's memorable victory against Germany that England fans haven't stopped going on about ever since. I've never been a football fan but I did watch that match on TV with my dad (who also wasn't a footie fan but we were swept up with the excitement of the times). What I did like, as a 7 year old back then, was the England mascot World Cup Willie. This cartoon lion appeared on various bits of merchandise including badges, T-shirts, and even bars of nougat.

One of the best items was the World Cup Willie Rolykin, similar to the Rolykins of the Daleks and Batman that were also around then produced by Louis Marx. I'm not a toy collector as such but I have saved a few toys I had as a child. As you can see from the photos, the 'Rolykin' was a plastic figure (4cm tall) that had a metal ball bearing in the base so you could roll it along smoothly. If memory serves me right, this simple but enjoyable toy was only 1/- (5p).

There was also a World Cup Willie comic strip in TV Comic for a while. Here's a page from September 1966, drawn by Bill Mevin I think...

Do you have any memories of this mascot you'd like to share? If so, post a comment below.

There's definitely red in there as well, Colin, if you click on the pictures to enlarge them. Bear in mind these figures were very small, and hand painted in Hong Kong, no doubt very quickly, so they did the best they could. They'd all have slight differences so some may be more accurate, but as long as it contained red, white, and blue, it was close enough.

Artist Roger Hoye, who had illustrated some Enid Blyton books, thought up Willie. He based it on his 12 year old son! There are some quite disturbing photos on-line of a fully suited up WCW, doing some promotional shoots in 1966. I find some of the photos a bit creepy! I think it is the exposed bare legs of the guy in the suit that freaks me a little!

About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is dedicated to British comics past and present. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are scanned from my own personal comics collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. On the rare occasion when I might use an image from another site I always credit the source. If you take images I've scanned to use on your own blog/site I'd appreciate it if you'd have the good manners to show the same courtesy.

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About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.